Modern Wisdom - #791 - Dr Robert Glover - Why Most Men Fail To Attract A Quality Woman

Episode Date: June 1, 2024

Dr Robert Glover is a therapist, coach and an author. Everyone wants a quality partner. Yet both sexes seem to be struggling to find a mate that makes them feel the way they want. Safe, whole, excited, interested, loved. Why is it so hard and what can we do to make it easier? Expect to learn how you can make your needs a priority, ways you can learn to be authentic, how men can learn to have more self compassion, what men often don’t understand about female attraction, the problem with needing approval from anyone outside of yourself, Robert’s advice for staying out of the friendzone, tips on how to date after a divorce and much more... Sponsors: See discounts for all the products I use and recommend: https://chriswillx.com/deals Get up to 32% discount on the best supplements from Momentous at https://livemomentous.com/modernwisdom (automatically applied at checkout) Get the Whoop 4.0 for free and get your first month for free at https://join.whoop.com/modernwisdom (discount automatically applied) Get a Free Sample Pack of all LMNT Flavours with your first box at https://www.drinklmnt.com/modernwisdom (automatically applied at checkout) Extra Stuff: Get my free reading list of 100 books to read before you die: https://chriswillx.com/books Try my productivity energy drink Neutonic: https://neutonic.com/modernwisdom Episodes You Might Enjoy: #577 - David Goggins - This Is How To Master Your Life: http://tinyurl.com/43hv6y59 #712 - Dr Jordan Peterson - How To Destroy Your Negative Beliefs: http://tinyurl.com/2rtz7avf #700 - Dr Andrew Huberman - The Secret Tools To Hack Your Brain: http://tinyurl.com/3ccn5vkp - Get In Touch: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/modernwisdompodcast Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello friends, welcome back to the show. My guest today is Dr. Robert Glover. He's a therapist, coach and an author. Everyone wants a quality partner. Yet both sexes seem to be struggling to find a mate that makes them feel the way they want safe, whole, excited, interested and loved. Why is it so hard? And what can we do to make it easier?

Expect to learn how you can make your needs a priority, the best way to become more authentic, how to have more self-compassion, what men don't understand about female attraction, the problem with needing approval from anyone outside of yourself, Robert's advice for staying out of the friend zone, tips on how to date after a divorce and much more. Trust really is everything when it comes to supplements. A lot of brands may say that they're top quality, but very few can actually prove it, which is why I partnered with Momentus.

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to livemomentous.com slash modern wisdom to see all the products I use and recommend that's live m o m e n t o u s dot com slash modern wisdom and modern wisdom. A checkout. This episode is brought to you by whoop. Whoop is a 24-7 health and fitness coach that tracks your sleep, strain recovery, stress, and more to provide personalized insights to help you to reach your goals. Whether you're obsessed with putting in a little more effort in the gym or getting those extra hours of sleep, whoop helps you improve your everyday health and wellness. Each morning whoop gives you a recovery score that acts as your daily guide for how much you should exert yourself. The end of the day, you'll get a recommendation for your ideal bedtime and wake time.

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free, try it for free and if you do not like it after 29 days, they will give you your money back. Head to join.whoop.com slash modern wisdom. That's join.whoop.com slash modern wisdom. This episode is brought to you by Element. I have started my morning every single day for the last three years the same way, which is with Element in water.

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refund policy so you can buy it 100% risk free. And if you do not like it, they will give you your money back and you don't even need to return the box. That's how confident they are that you love it. They are the exclusive hydration partner to team USA weightlifting and relied on by tons of Olympic athletes and high performers in the NFL, NBA, NHL and FBI sniper teams plus tech leaders and everyday athletes around the world. Head to www.drinklmnt.com.com.au to get a free sample pack of all 8 flavors with any purchase. That's www.drinklmnt.com slash modern wisdom. But now ladies and gentlemen please welcome Dr Robert Glover. So you say, if you don't believe you and your needs are important, you won't be receptive to the good things the world wants to give you.

That's a good starting point. Why do you think so many guys subjugate their needs? Um, we've been taught to, and we inaccurately internalized ironically that that was the best way to get our needs met. I mean, think about it. If you're a small child, infant, and you don't have a lot of thinking processing power, just survival power. And, uh, let's say you, you quickly come to the awareness that the caretakers in your life are not real competent.

They don't respond timely. They don't respond consistently. They don't respond with what you really need. And so what you learn is, well, maybe if I get rid of my needs, or maybe if I become needless and wantless, I mean, this isn't thought, it's just emotional survival reaction.

If I take care of their needs, if I make sure they're okay, then they'll be okay to make sure I'm okay. And all of this begins before we can even think about it. So it gets wired into our nervous system. Then we grow up to be children, adolescents, adults, and we just keep following the same thing that got wired in when very inaccurately. When we were just a few months old.

And it's strange to think that we can rail against the world not giving us the things that we want, meanwhile we don't make the things that we want a priority? Well, that's a big piece I've worked on. And I work with men and that's a really big piece. I used to do things like not tell anybody what my needs and wants were, or even hide them. I still at times make it difficult for people to give to me. I've been told by many people in my life that I'm difficult to give to, so I consciously work at that. Another piece with the men I work with that I call nice guys is, again, they believe they're bad for having needs, everybody else's

needs are more important. And here again, the kind of distorted logic that a lot of us use, I've done this, a lot of guys do this, women do it too, is they'll go find a person whose life is a mess. They can't pay their own bills, they can't hold a job, they fight with everybody they know, they're depressed, you know, whatever. We think I can fix them up. I'll, I'll, I'll dedicate all my resources to getting them good. And once they're good, they'll get, they'll, they'll be there for me. They'll help me get my needs met, but that's

just terrible, terrible strategy. If you want to get your needs met, go find people who are already competent at getting their own needs met and who are available to help give to you. But again, most of this stuff is so unconscious, we're not thinking about it. We just keep doing the same thing, hoping that at some point it will work. And then again, often when people then do try to give to us, no, no, that's okay. It's all right. No, it doesn't matter. The minimization. Yeah. No, no, no,

no. So yeah, this is a big piece I've been working on in my own life. Yeah, there's something I think, especially for guys, that seems kind of like romantically heroic about I don't need anybody or anything. I can make this work on my own. There's something kind of not desperate, but tangential to desperate and needy about having needs. And I think the reverse of that,

of maybe if you tell people what you want, sometimes they'll give it to you. Creating a, reframing that so that it's something which is aspirational to do, I think is a hurdle that many guys may struggle to get over, you know, talk about that, that dynamic with men, because again, I I've been working with men for 30 years and a really core pattern I see is just this pattern of, of going it alone, isolating themselves. Another way I put it is so many men, and especially the younger men,

millennials, generation below, they grew up with the internet, and it's like, that's all they need. You know, they just, they hang out, I call it, they hang out in the nursery. Nothing's required of them, nothing's demanded of them. They get all their connections on social media, spend all their time on the internet,

binging on Netflix, playing World of Warcraft, smoking dope, drinking, jerking off to porn, just, and that's their life. And to actually go connect with other real life human beings who could actually nurture them, fill their bucket, give them social connection. It feels like they'd have to give up too much. I have to give up all this other stuff over here that consumes them. And maybe even there, I think there's a fear that they might even have to reveal too much of themselves and reveal how shallow and empty and non-productive

their lives really are. And so they just keep doing the same thing. Yeah. When you're siloed off, no one is peering in to look at exactly how are you spending your day and exactly what do you think? And when do you get out of bed? You've got this great quote where you say, your mind would rather manage old and familiar anxieties than confront new and unknown ones. And I think that's exactly what you're talking about. That's just a given, you know, the devil, you know, the devil, you don't know. And for

so many men, I liken it to, I call it an emotional tree fort. I don't know where you grew up, if you had trees around you, but we had trees, we had tree forts. And you know, the ideal perfect day is if, you know, you or one of your buddies found somebody's dad's Playboy magazine or whatever, hustler, penthouse, whatever, and you go up in the tree fort, pull the ladder up, nobody can

find you and you can just be all by yourself and do whatever you want. And it's kind of like a lot of men just continue that mentality of just wanting to live in that emotional tree fort where they pull the ladder up, nobody can track them, nobody knows what they're up to. They don't have to get real, accountable, vulnerable with anybody. And then, then we wonder why, you know, statistically you read how many men are isolated, lonely, depressed, the tolls that it takes on us physically, emotionally, early death. Look at any, you know, in this country, any of the, you know, the, the, the multiple shooters is all lonely, isolated white young men.

And, and, you know, now it's men, you know, men going their own way and sells just, you know, they're just saying, Hey, we're advertising it now. We're in the club of guys that basically aren't in a club. Yeah. They, they self-ID in their isolation. Yeah, exactly. It becomes their identity. And then it also then becomes easier to blame somebody, something outside of you, whether it's women, society, culture, feminism, whatever. Well, let's blame them for my isolation. I was at a retreat this weekend with about 40 men,

and I spoke to them about this. And if I had to pull a number out of my ass, I'd say, you know, maybe 80% of the isolated lonely men are isolated by choice. Not because they've lost a partner, not because they've had an accident or an illness or a major financial setback is by choice, it's their preference. And then all the while wonder why they can't get love, can't get laid, you know, can't get a promotion at work, don't have any friends. It's, it's, it seems to be a voluntary, uh, place to be. I understand why guys have a skepticism and a retreat from the world around them.

No, uh, it's not to say that they can't overcome it themselves and that the agency is in their hands to fix the problem. But I do think that a lot of guys feel like their challenges are being dismissed by the whining of a privileged class that they themselves don't actually feel like they're a part of. That, you know- It is so ironic how all the projections out there of who's actually privileged in our culture. And you have men saying, well, you know, now women and minorities and immigrants are privileged and the women and minorities and immigrants

go, those white guys are privileged. And, you know, I've really never found where blame or pointing fingers resolves much of anything or gets you anywhere. Yes. I, that being said, if you are a guy that is struggling and isolated and alone and doesn't have many connections, hearing that the world out there considers you to have some sort, like you're the original oppressor.

Yeah, exactly. You know, you are the OG. The patriarchy. Yeah, of course, you are the OG oppressor. That is going to encourage you to check out. It's like, hey, I'm suffering. It's an excuse. You can use it as a great excuse.

Correct. Yes, yeah. It legitimates your prize already. Okay, so how can people better learn to make their needs a priority? How do you start doing that? I began by giving to myself. Years ago, I was in therapy.

I was married to my second wife, who I was married to and I wrote No More Mr. Nice Guy. And it became obvious that I was operating by what I call covert contracts, giving to get. If I do this for you, then you'll do this for me. I won't have to say it out loud, won't have to ask, won't have to be clear or direct. You'll just read my mind because I gave you and I know you're going to give to me. And so when I was working with the therapist, I was in a men's group at that time, I made a year-long commitment that I would no longer give gifts, surprises, anything to anybody else other than my children. So like if

I was at the mall, I thought, oh, my wife would like that. If, if I, if I saw at any impulse to give to somebody else, I had to give something to me, not necessarily equal, but it was a way of reversing an old paradigm, an old pattern, I was just so reflexively giving to everybody else. And in the midst of doing that, the people in my life felt the strings attached. I didn't realize I was giving to get, giving to approval, to get approval, giving for them to give back. And then when they did try to give to me, I wouldn't let them. So I had to start giving with me. So that's where it had to begin. I had to say, okay, what do I want? What's my priorities? What's important to me? I'd go in the mall, and there'd be a jacket on sale, and I bought myself a jacket in a while and I'd buy myself a jacket.

You know, I'd pay for my kids to go to the dentist or the dentist and I thought, it's been a few years since I've been to the dentist. So I thought, I need to go to the dentist. So, you know, all the way from just basic healthcare kind of things and I continue to this day, you know, wear a ring that tracks my sleep. I try to give to me by getting enough sleep. I just hired a nutrition coach. I want to, you know, I want to be around another 20, 30 years and have a fit body and fit mind. And I thought, I got to give to me. I got to eat well.

I told my fitness coach, I don't want to track macros. I'm tracking macros. Nah, you can't get around it. Yeah. So whether it's giving to ourselves and just those basic fundamental, get enough exercise, get enough sleep, eat healthy, spend time socially connecting with other people, save money, go to

the dentist, whether it's those basic things or just, you know, ordering yourself some new clothes. Prioritizing yourself first. Prioritizing yourself. Now I know people already listening to this going, but that's just saying, you know, say I'm going to go ahead and prioritize yourself first. Prioritizing self. Now I know people already listening to this going, but that's just selfish. That's just fundamentally selfish.

What if everybody lived that way? And I think if everybody lived that way, we'd probably be a lot better off because we wouldn't be walking around from this place of emptiness and neediness and manipulating people to try to value us or give to us. and manipulating people to try to value us or give to us. And if our bucket is full and overflowing, we have so much more to give to everybody else. I, like a lot of people for a long time was trying to give from an empty bucket. My bucket was bone dry.

You know, not only did I, I didn't fill it, but I didn't let anybody else help me fill it. So if you're not caring for yourself, if you're not doing the things that makes you whole, you then look to other people to fill something that you could have done already. You have an empty vessel, you come to fix me. However, I'm not going to tell you that I need you to fix me and I'm not going to fix me. And then I'm going to become resentful of you and me for me being empty. That's probably the definition of neediness right there. And you know, and this again, this is what I'm talking with people about

how to get their needs met. The first thing that guys will say, well, you know, well, will that make me needy? You know, that, that, that repulses women, right? That, that, and no, making your needs a priority does not make you needy. Not making your needs a priority, walking around an empty bucket with this big vacuum hose that you try to hook up to other people to get them to meet your needs, that's neediness. And that's what, you know, people kind of go like this to. So we all have needs. And to just acknowledge, I have needs. And again, guys want, well, what's the difference

between a need and a want? Don't go there. If you want it, great. If you need it, great, but make yourself a priority. And we're kind of bringing this back around and more pieces to this, but a really good book. I've been recommending it. It seems like a lot lately because it's an old book that a lot of the younger generation hasn't discovered, but it's a book called The Road Less Traveled by Dr. M. Scott Peck, a psychiatrist. He's passed away.

I'm told it is the all time bestselling self-help book. And it's been around well over 30 something years. Back when I was a minister, I've been preached sermons from it many, many, many years ago, you're smiling, Oh, minister, we'll go there. Um, and I brought up in a Christian church that says, put yourself last, put yourself last, you know, subjugate your desires. Yeah. Yeah. I can tell you a Christian church that says, put yourself last, put yourself last. Subjugate your desires. Yeah.

I can tell you some stories about that. So Scott Peck says that if parents are meeting their own needs, are attentive to their children, responding to their children's needs in timely, judicious, and I add consistent ways, children at this young age emotionally internalize a belief, I'm valuable, I'm lovable, my needs are important, and the world is like my family. Now, can you imagine going off to preschool, kindergarten, saying, I'm lovable, I'm valuable, my needs are important, and kindergarten is going to be just like my family. Or junior high, you know, I'm lovable, I'm valuable, my needs are important, and everybody in and kindergarten is going to be just like my family. Or junior high, you know, I'm lovable, I'm valuable, my needs are important and everybody in junior high is going to be just like my family. If we operated that in the world, can you imagine how our lives would be so

significantly different? We just had internalized belief, I'm valuable, I'm lovable, my needs are important. And of course, most of us did not get that to a significant degree. We maybe got the opposite. And unfortunately, another piece that can get added in if you don't get that is that if your parents are not meeting your needs in timely, judicious, consistent ways, they may tell you they love you 100 times a day. But if they're not meeting your needs, you don't internalize that emotional belief. But if they're not meeting your needs and you get called up maybe even to take care of a parent,

you get parentified. Like for me, I like sports, and so my father got a lot of pride out of his son, you know, being good in sports. And my mother, you know, lived through me to be the good man that my father was. So I was parentified by both of my parents. Then a child internalizes the belief,

I'm not good enough, because you think I should be able to fill mom up and make her not depressed and make her happy. I should be able to satisfy dad in this way. And so you internalize that belief. Now you got the beliefs of I'm not valuable or lovable. My needs aren't important. I'm not good enough.

And the world is like my family. That's how most people approach the world. So here's my theory. My theory, if Scott Peck's theory is accurate, and I believe it has value, and maybe our minds aren't as receptive and elastic and plastic as they were when we were infants, our brains are still plastic,

and we can still rewrite, overwrite our basic operating system and machine language. And so I believe that we're actually going to make the world a better place, be more loving, accept more love. If we can start making our needs a priority in that way that Scott Peck talks about, okay, it's not our parents' jobs anymore. It's our job. So our job is number one, when we can, fill our own bucket up.

Number two, surround ourselves with people who want to help us fill our bucket up and create what I call cooperative reciprocal relationships. Everybody in the relationship is there because they choose to be cooperative and it's reciprocal. Everybody gets value. That can be a friendship, it can be a family member, a buddy, it can be a professional cooperative. You and I have a cooperative reciprocal relationship. We're both here because we choose to be, we both get value out of it,

and our lives are better because we have this time together. And if we can fill our lives up with that, I believe we can also internalize the emotional belief, not just a mantra, oh, I'm good enough, I'm lovable, but an emotional belief in our nervous system at the core, I'm lovable and valuable, my needs are important, I'm good enough, and the world sees that, and the world's going to respond to that. I think that then lets us be much more loving and giving to the world around us and much more receptive to all that the world, the universe, the cosmos wants to give us. In other news, this episode is brought to you by Nomadic. Their travel pack is my favourite backpack of all time. You can tell this one is a bit worn because I actually use it every single day. It is

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Right now you can get 20% off everything site-wide by going to the link in the show notes below or heading to nomadic.com slash modern wisdom. That's nomadic.com slash modern wisdom. I'm interested in taking that step from just tactical things, which are a great foundation. If I'm going to give to somebody else, have you given to yourself recently? Probably a good idea. That's something that's tactical, uh, learning to clearly and fairly state when

something makes you feel good or makes you feel bad, probably a good way of setting boundaries and reinforcing behavior that you want from people around you. All of these things, tactically very useful at a high level, but the deeper stage of this, of unpicking the texture of your system, as you're talking about, like the emotional response that you have, as opposed to just creating this odd lattice work of band-aids that you've placed over the top of it,

to somehow be able to operate in a functional way, from a dysfunctional foundation. How do, what are the steps of getting deeper? How much can we unpick those patterns that we've developed from even pre-verbally and what are the steps that you like to get people to go through? Well, number one, I don't know. There's about three or four questions there. I don't know.

I don't know how much we can rewrite. I know we can rewrite some, you know, people will come to me and say, Robert, how long will this take for me to get to X, Y, or Z? I don't know. I'm still, I'm still on that journey. I haven't gotten there yet. I'm still learning. I'll let you know once I find out.

Probably a lifetime. So if we do anything, you know, or if there's anything about the human mind and the human nervous system, it likes predictability, it likes the sameness, kind of going back to that quote that you read earlier. We like the ghetto we know, even if it's a ghetto, but it's the ghetto we know. And to leave that ghetto and go out into the world where I don't know what language they speak, I don't know what their rules are, we'll just stay where we are. But countless people throughout time have decided to challenge themselves, whether through religious, spiritual practice, yogic practice, challenging themselves to make more money, challenge themselves

to get into shape, whatever. No matter how we challenge ourselves, our nervous system, our mind, our body is going to resist. It wants to hold on to the familiar neural pathways, those neural goat paths that we've been down, the muscle memory that we've just created since before we could think and reason. Okay, that's normal. That's why coaching is valuable. That's why therapy is valuable. That's why 12-step groups are valuable. That's why, you know, having mentors is valuable. It's because if we're gonna do it on our own, we'll probably keep, you know, stumbling and bumping into hurdles and brick walls and we'll quit. We'll give up. But if we can make

this journey with others who either are on a similar journey or who've already been further down the road, when our emotional dissonance, our cognitive dissonance, our physical dissonance, when our reaction comes in, we have accountability, we have support. We don't have to go through it alone because for example, you know, I like to be in shape, but I've never been a gym rat and I've never been, you know, one of those people who just die hard, got to get to the gym every day. And so, you know, I've learned it's better if I don't say I'm going to lose X amount of weight in this amount of time, or I'm going to go to the gym this many times. Because as soon as I set like a commitment to weight in this amount of time, or I'm going to go to the gym this many times.

Cause as soon as I set like a commitment to myself, this out of my normal habit pattern, I almost always about a week or two later, catch myself gone the other direction without even being aware. Right. Just a few examples. When I was going through my second divorce and I was in my late forties, living alone for the first time in my adult life, I started going to a 12-step group, a few of them actually, just to have a support system, just to have a men's group. And you know, they got a lot of platitudes in 12 steps, and one of them was about having an attitude of gratitude.

So I thought, you know, going through a divorce, my life's in turmoil, my first book's just about to be published, you know, my son's a senior in high school. My life was just, it just felt upside down. And so a buddy I met in this 12 step group, I said, let's start a gratitude practice. Every morning, first thing when we get up, every night before we get in bed, let's just think of 30 seconds, four, five, six, 10 things we feel grateful for and we'll check in with each other. Both of us started this.

Four or five days in, I was just feeling amazing. I was going through all these changes, struggles, difficulties, and I was feeling good because I was doing this gratitude practice. And about the fifth day, I forgot to do it. And so did my buddy. And we probably both went about two or three days before it dawned on us, wait a minute, we haven't been doing that gratitude practice.

It was, it felt good. Both of us were liking it. And we just forgot. That's that emotional cognitive dissonance of where our nervous system wants to just keep things homeostatic, keep things in a familiar pathway. And so now if I am going to make a significant commitment, I do have to surround myself with people and I have to check in. I decided end of last year, I thought, you know, I've always thought it's a good idea to meditate, you know, tried. I always thought, well, you got to get uncomfortable sitting cross-legged on this cushion and I could not have any thought. And so a guy I knew, I said, would you coach me in meditation? He lives on Michael Singer's compound in Florida. And so I thought if he's living there, he probably is into meditation.

And so he did. So we started every day, we'd check in, we just came up with a plan, first thing in the morning. And so that's probably been four or five months now and I've only missed three days of meditation because we checked in every day, we connected with each other. One day it was late at night, I thought, oh, I'm going to miss a day. I thought, fuck it. I don't want this to be ego driven.

I'm going to do it because I want to do it. So I missed it. I didn't try to squeeze it in the end of the day. And I have found out there's an interesting mathematics to this. If I do the meditation early in the morning, first thing in the day, I don't miss it. It goes on the calendar. I take a snapshot. I wait till later. I can get pushed, pushed, pushed. I forget about it. Same thing, you know, wanting to be healthy and fit. Okay. I've hired a fitness coach. And so, and then we check in regularly and I'm putting things in, you know, my

fitness pal and I'm doing all that stuff. That is how we change those old patterns. It takes consistency over time. I know in the, in the self-help world, there's this thing of 21 days to change a habit. I don't know who in the fuck thought that up. I've never changed a habit in 21 days. Uh, I think if you've had something in your nervous system, in my case, 60 something years, it ain't going away in 21 days, but I'm okay with that. I can be the noticer because when you decide, okay, I'm going to eat this way.

I'm going to exercise this way. I'm going to practice gratitude this way, or meditate this way. Now you become the observer of self. You notice when you have the impulse to go eat this thing that, you know, you're not eating or skip the day at the gym or not meditate, you notice the pattern coming up and then again, if you have a support system, you just check in and then pick it up again tomorrow.

So it's not rocket science, but it is challenging. How can we stop our ruminating brains? You mentioned there about when you posit an ideal, you then begin to compare yourself to that ideal. And a lot of the time you start to fall short. And I think lots of people, especially high performers, personal developers, self-growth will have a very scolding inner voice. Yeah, I watched those interviews and I'm going, oh my goodness, I'd hate to be inside his

head. But yeah, we put them on pedestals, the high performers, the worship of Navy SEALs, all this stuff that especially we men do in this culture. And yeah, most of them are driven by a lot of demons, by a lot of voices in their head, and maybe you can relate to that as well. I fortunately don't, I can ruminate as well as the next person, but I don't, fortunately I don't have that critical voice generally. My mind just, I just, it keeps me safe. I just don't launch into bigger and you know, things that, the unknown. But I don't have a highly critical voice, but I work with a lot of people that do. I think every woman I've been married to has had that.

My father did. Um, it is maybe one of my superpowers to, you know, to kind of help calm the people down, but I have a whole course that I call the ruminating brain. And my theory about ruminating brain is that I think for many people is an inherited trait that you don't have to look far in the family tree to see mom, dad, sibling, grandparents, aunts, uncles, with some manifestation of this rumination kind of pattern. You see depressed, depression, anxiety, suicides oftentimes,

addictive issues, relationship struggles, abuse. And so I think it's a brain type that you inherit. Like, uh, studies have shown you can inherit brain types that predispose you to addictions, uh, to ADHD and ruminating brain. And I found those three things often go together. I've got so many buddies that are recovering addicts and most of them acknowledge they have ADHD and most of them acknowledge they have ADHD and most all of them acknowledge they have a ruminating brain. So I think there's something genetically inherited

of those traits. Now the ruminating brain can also be caused by trauma. That's what PTSD does. It can create ruminations. It can lead to depression. But what the ruminating brain typically does, and brains don't actually ruminate, but it's like there's this constant spinning, like there's a washing machine agitating all the time, and you're inside the washing machine. And I found that there's three ways, three directions ruminating brains tend to go, then go into the past

and just rehash every perceived mistake, missed opportunity, regret. And you know, if you replay the same regret 15,000 times, you're going to feel like a real loser. You're going to feel like there's something fundamentally wrong with you. And I think even going back to these isolated men we were talking about earlier, I suspect a lot do have ruminating brains, because if you're going in the past and just rehashing, oh, I blew that opportunity, how come I didn't talk to her, how come I didn't get her number, how come I broke up with her, how come I stayed with her. I was teaching when I taught this course live a few years ago, and a guy who was probably about my age, who was

in his 50s or 60s, still ruminating about a missed sexual opportunity in college, still beating himself up. So again, the mind creates this illusion that it's just gathering important information. It's important that I keep going back and rehashing, relooking at this stuff. Cause there's something I missed, something I need to know. But all you really do is just, you just end up feeling worse and worse and worse about yourself. So the other thing that people do in that backward looking is they create, I call it revisionist history. I've had other people call it like castles in the sky.

We go back and replay these events and we say, if I just done X, Y, or Z, then my life would have gone down this path and this, if I just had slept with her when I had that chance in college, my whole life would be radically different. But it's not true. We'd still probably be ruminators and we'd still be ruminating about all missed opportunities. But we believe that that revisionist history is highly likely, could be possible, and it's not what we're living now, so now we feel terrible. So here's another way then that our ruminating brain beats us up.

It measures us and compares us. Maybe it measures us against just any arbitrary standard. Oh, I should be a millionaire by this. I should be married by this time. I should have slept with 100 women by this time. I should have launched my program by this time. I should have had, shouldn't slept with a hundred women by this time. You know, I should have launched my, my, my program by this time or, Oh, look, he's my age and he's some, Bill Gates is the same age as me and graduated from high school in the same

city as me the same year. And you know, I, he's, you know, what if I compared myself to Bill Gates, you know, in terms of at least financial success? I mean, I'd be miserable if I actually took that seriously. So there's that comparison and the measurement almost always finding ourselves lacking and being less than in some fundamental significant way. That's one reason I'm not a big fan of this bow down and worship the high achiever thing that we're so caught up in. 10X your life, 10X this, you could be doing better, you could be making more. You could be doing that. You could be an AVCO. You could be that. I think all it does is just fuel that I'm not good enough.

I'm not good enough. And we know we're not going to attain that, but we think we should in order to be good enough. And so then the third way that the ruminating brain goes is into the future. This is where your perfectionism comes in. If I think about it, if I think about it, if I think about it, if I think about it, And so then the third way that the ruminating brain goes is into the future. This is where your perfectionism comes in. If I don't do it perfectly, it's going to crash.

It's going to burn. What if I fail? What if I look foolish? What if I invest in it and I lose everything I've got? What, you know, with my luck, you know, everything's going to crash and everything's okay now, but it's only a matter of time till everything goes south, goes tits up and everything just, you know. So what happens if you've got a problem, you know, everything's going to crash and everything's okay now, but it's only a matter of time until everything goes south, goes tits up and everything just, you know.

So what happens if you've got that going on in your head and most ruminators, maybe do all three of those, go in the past, go in the future, do the measure and compare, but most do one significantly more than the other. And the three things it tends to do to you, it keeps you stuck. Cause if you're just ruminating about the past, trying to figure out every possible pathway forward before you take any action, research everything to death, you're not going to take action, so you're going to stay stuck. You're going to stay isolated, there's that isolated thing, because you don't want people to

find out. Because if you're ruminating in all these negative ways, your odds are not going to feel really good about yourself. And you don't want to let people get close to you because you're afraid they're going to find out what you already believe to be true. And you're going to feel really bad about yourself. Because again, if you rehash the same mistakes enough times, if you miss enough opportunities because it took you too long to make a decision, if you compare and measure yourself enough, you'll find enough opportunities, because it took you too long to make a decision, if you compare and measure yourself enough, you'll find enough people doing better than you. You're just going to feel fundamentally flawed.

And it just goes on and on. But thankfully there is, there is good news. And I teach people a combination of both mindfulness and cognitive behavioral therapy, but it's as simple as how can we step out of the washing machine and watch it spin rather than be in it being spun by it. So the primary mantra of what I teach people ruminating brain is practice being the observer, not the believer of our thoughts. Unfortunately, if we've thought something for long enough, a belief is nothing but an off repeated thought. If you've thought that thought enough times, you're convinced it's true.

It doesn't matter what our belief is. It could be religious belief, political belief, belief about ourselves, belief about women, belief about the world. If you think it enough, and if you find enough other supporting evidence through confirmation bias, of course it must be true. And so stepping out of that machine and watching it going, it sure still seems true that I'm, you know, you know, so many men create their sense of value by measuring how well they've done with women in life. You know, how many times they've been laid, if they've been laid, how many girlfriends they've had, if they've had girlfriends, you know, have they been married, you know, or how many times have they been married, and I've just crossed the line that now...

So I see guys who don't feel they're good enough because they've never had a girlfriend, or they've never had sex, so they must not be good enough, or they haven't had enough sex, or not enough sex with enough pretty women, or, you enough or they haven't had enough sex or not enough sex with enough pretty women or you know they haven't had a lot. I talked to somebody the other day all my girl all my all my relationships ended about two years so he's judging himself for that. I was on a call with two podcasters and all really you know me and the other two guys all work with people around relationships and And one guy said, well, I'm not in a relationship right now, so I kind of have this thing of how can I teach people?

The other guy says, well, I met my wife in high school and that's the only one I've ever been with. How can I teach people? And I go, I've been divorced three times. How can I teach people? And so it's funny how we find these things to measure ourselves that are absolutely inconsequential, but we're just sure they're proof of our worth or our lack of worth. It's so interesting. It's the Michael Singer influence there of you are not your thoughts, you're the observer of your thoughts, being able to sort of step away and see that washing machine going on. I think so many of the thought patterns that people engage in regularly, the stories that they tell themselves, a little sort of like reverse mantras that they have, not something that's positive and encourages them, but something which is negative

and reinforces a fear that they have or an insufficiency that they're concerned about or whatever. You're right, if you say those things to yourself enough times, you'll end up believing that they're true. And then after a while, they just become part of you and you're not even believing it anymore. It's like the physics of your system. Yeah. You know, whether you do a dive into like Joe Dispenza type quantum physics, you know, pick the path you want, psychologically, the world will be as we believe the world to be. We will be in the world as we believe ourselves.

It goes back to, you know, what we internalize at a young age. So if you believe the world is X, Y, Z, that's what you're going to see. You're only going to see examples of that. And you'll, you won't see all the things that might contradict those beliefs. Just two bits there. First off, the, the way that the reticular activating system actually works is precisely by that. It's why when you buy a new car, you're like,

is every 10 fucking person got this same car? Like why did, no. And the same color even. You're now looking for it, right? It's the same reason as to why they do experiments where they tell people to pick all of the things that were red in a room and then say, and how many things were blue?

And they go, I have no idea. It's like, well, no, because you weren't looking for the things that were blue. You were looking for the things that were red. So have you heard the one about the gorilla? Yes. Where they get the passing basketball. How many times did they pass the basketball?

And did you notice the gorilla that came through the middle of the gorilla? No one noticed the gorilla that came through the middle of the screen. Yeah, of course. So the way that the reticular activating system works, you actually do, from a sort of sensory interpretation perspective, you blot out the things that you're not looking for. And if you are looking for a reason as to why you are a

loser or why you are not worthy or why people don't like you or why the world doesn't care whether you live or die, or you're inferior to other people or they're more successful or they've got more friends or they're going to make more money or whatever it is you will observe like global confirmation bias you will find things that reinforce that belief easily so from the sort of reticular activating and now the internet will feed that to you as well of course because you actually have algorithms that pick out that they

realize that you spent 0.5 seconds longer on all of the negative news stories and the positive ones or on the ones that are aspirational about dudes that got 3% body fat and a 220 pounds stage shredded all year round. Not everybody looks, it's like watching porn and think every guy's got a big dick. Yes.

Everybody's got a big dick. Yeah, no, you're seeing a skewed perspective of the world. So first thing, yes, that's the way that the reticular activating system works. But on top of that as well, I think you can repurpose the story you tell yourself about pretty much almost anything. So it's this great, great, great example, Sam Harris uses where he says at the end of a workout, you know, really tough cardio and weights workout when your heart rate's at 190 and you're lying on the floor of the gym in a sweat angel and you're panting and you've got the taste of metal in the back of your throat and your heart and sweat everywhere.

And that sensation in and of itself is quite uncomfortable. And yet you're taking such cathartic, weird pleasure from this masochistic thing that you just did to yourself because of the story that you tell yourself. Now, if that exact same stimulus happened spontaneously while you were sat in traffic, you would think I need to go to the hospital fucking immediately, right?

What is happening to me? That tells us that the story that you tell yourself about why something is happening very much and maybe almost entirely is your experience of that thing. Well, and what's the quote? The only difference between anxiety and excitement is breath. It is, um, Fritz Perls, I think said that, that there's the same neurological response in the body, but when you're excited, you're actually breathing. But when you're anxious, you quit breathing, but there's the same neurological response in the body. So yes, what we label things in the context

we give things makes all the difference. And like you, yeah, I believe anything is within our power to begin making adjustments. Now, I'll kind of throw out another part to this. I've never found anybody make a significant change from a place of shame or from hating on themselves. And I'll just give you an example, you know, I tend to carry my weight in my belly. And I found that whenever, you know, if I gain a little weight there, if I start just every time I look in the mirror, I just hate on my belly, it doesn't go away. Never has gone away from hating on it. But if I focus on my chest a little bit on my shoulders and arms a little bit, which I like better and just kind of send love and think, how can I keep doing better?

The belly takes care of itself. And a lot of people think the way to make significant change is to have significant shame wrapped around it or to hate on themselves. But the hating on yourself, how's that going to open you up to let good things happen, to let yourself change in positive ways. So let good things come to you. Well, do you want to be around that person either? Is that the friend you want? But so many people have that person up here in their head with them.

Of course, of course. And you know, I'm speaking to myself here. I have a very scolding in a voice. It's very quick to judge. It's very quick to tell me when I've fallen short of these impossibly arbitrary, high standards that no one else knows. So here's one, here's one thing that happens, uh, pretty frequently, I think for me. And I know that Lex Friedman has the same issue when you're speaking a sentence as a

podcaster, you're very. Intimately connected with the texture of your mind, with the friction from what you're thinking to what you mean to say. And a lot of the time you're trying to play this odd balance between getting out of your own way so that the words come out naturalistically and also being sufficiently engaged so that you can craft the direction of where the sentence is going. And sometimes you forget a word or you slightly misspeak or you're imprecise with the way that you meant to describe something

or you use one term when you could have used a different one or you pause in the wrong sort of place. And, you know, this is my craft. This speaking thing is what I do. And I am... I absolutely adore this level of... This relationship I have with my verbal mind. And it's one of the things that I pride myself on the most, but it also means that when I

start to fall short, if there is something where I just, I just trip over a little rock ever so slightly. And that to me plays on my mind because I think, well, this is where you could, what should have been. And that's how you're constructing the next sentence the next sentence, which you then begin to spiral down from there. But here's the weird thing. Nobody else knows the sentence that you could have spoken. No one else knows. No one else knows the blog post you could have written.

Nobody else knows the meal you could have cooked. Nobody else knows the chest press rep that you could have done. Only you will know about that. And there's, I can see how for type B people with that, the lack of external scrutiny gives them the opportunity to do less and to kind of hide away. But for type A people that gives them this sort of bizarre internal taskmaster that continues to whip them until they hit some impossibly high standard that nobody could ever meet in any case.

And it's still not good enough. Correct. You know, that taskmaster doesn't... Okay, I put the whip down. You achieved it. In other news, this episode is brought to you by NetSuite. The less your business spends on operations, on multiple systems, on delivering your product or service, the more margin you have and the more money that you keep.

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Matthew Hussey, didn't you? Yeah. So he has this great story where he's talking about how, um, he starts each day basically in, in something similar to productivity debt. Oliver Berkman's got this phenomenal idea of productivity debt that when he wakes up every morning, he imagines that he's somehow overdrawn in this. Contribution to his, yes, yes. And that it is his job that by the end of the day, if he castigates and flagellates himself sufficiently, he may be able to get it back to zero.

Like only zero though. You can never be in the 4,000 weeks guy. We're correct. Yeah. That's all of a Berkman. And then, um, this is Matthew Hussey's thing, which I think relates to it. I struggle to believe I'm worthy of moments of joy and peace

without first putting myself through a brutal schedule, monitoring my productivity levels down to the minute. Perhaps some people apply this to earn your cookie mindset in ways that lead to healthy accomplishments, not me. Mine is a mutation whereby joy and self-compassion are regularly outlawed by an internal tyrant who decides when I've been flogged enough for one day. Just when I'm about to collapse, a voice inside says,

okay, give him half an hour of peace before bed, but make sure he knows we'll start again, bright and early in the morning. In debt. In debt, productivity debt. In debt. Yep. Yeah, and you know, productivity debt. In debt. Yep. Yeah. And you know, that's what I was talking about, about stepping

outside the washing machine, right? When you're inside the washing machine, you don't know you're being spun by it. That's, that's normal. That's life. It's, it's just what is. But when you can step outside, as Matthew does in that example, he can be the observer of himself and from there, something can shift. He can do something different. I love living in Mexico. I love

that Mexican culture honors the siesta. I lay down at least two, maybe three times a day, sometimes for 10, 15 minutes, sometimes for 30 minutes or an hour. And whether it's just put a little hot pack on my eyes or take a nap. And you know, I'm so much more productive. I can work from seven in the morning till 10 at night and not feel drained or exhausted or driven just because I can build those little gaps in there to say, time to relax, time to recharge the battery.

And if you can step outside that cycle, you can go, hmm, I'm going to go lay down for 15 minutes. When, when sometimes when I'll do like 30 or 90 day challenges with, with guys around different areas of life. One of the assignments I almost always give now, just because I love the reaction is that no matter what the challenges, whether it's a fitness challenge, you know, meditation challenge, whatever the challenge is, they have to take 30 minutes a day to

meticulously do nothing. Whether it's just sit on a bench, sit in nature, go for a casual walk, take a nap, listen to music, meditate, whatever it is, 30 minutes a day. And it's funny, it's the thing they resist the most starting out. But by the time the challenge is up, they love it. They absolutely love it. Cause just that doing nothing, kind of just refilling the bucket again, recharges you, makes you more productive.

And again, this is kind of like that drive that nobody ever changed from a place of shame or, or, or hating on something. Yeah, we can drive ourselves. We can drive ourselves. Um, but you never do get there. That was an unfinished thought from me earlier on where I was saying, who would you rather be around? Like, think about your friends and think about the ones that are performing well.

And then imagine that that person was able to push themselves to that level of performance or even close to it. Let's say they had to sacrifice 5% of their outcomes in life, but they got to gain 50% of no longer cursing themselves and the shame and the blame and the guilt and stuff, who would you rather your friends be? You would absolutely go, dude, this seems like the best deal in history. Like the only reason that you're trying to be successful and achieve something is presumably to make yourself feel happy.

And in the pursuit of trying to become successful so that you can become happy, you're making yourself miserable. You're sacrificing the thing that you want for the thing that's supposed to get the thing that you want. And yeah, you know, if, if you can, again, me speaking to me, if you can see that you would much sooner be around that person because they're going to be a better friend and the energy that they bring to the room is just going to be so much more positive sum for the world.

But that you would want that for them just for them. Yeah. Right. You'd want that because their day to day experience of the world is going to be so much more joyful and enjoyable. And it seems to me, you know, looking at your work and increasingly kind of opening the lid on how people operate that chronic shame is such a huge driver of why people do almost everything that they do in life. Yeah. We're surrounded with shame, you know, culturally, familially.

I said that wrong. I feel so terrible. Religiously. And it, feels so terrible religiously. And it, rather than making people happy and successful, it makes them easy to control. And, and, and that's why my religion and governments, you know, if they, if they can make people feel bad about something that's normal or natural, it's easy to control them because, you know, it's like a little kid.

I, I, my, my,. My doctorate, my education is marriage and family therapy. And parents used to bring kids into me and go, my kid's doing this, they're doing that. And I go, that's actually normal behavior. Well, no, but it's driving me crazy. I don't want them to do it. And they would shame the kid for normal, natural, stage-appropriate behavior. And the kid will do one of two things. It'll either start hiding the behavior to avoid the punishment and the consequence, but it doesn't mean it goes away or the impulse goes away. Or they become oppositionally defiant.

They just push back against everything. They'll cut off their nose to spite their face. If you make shame the motivating factor. And that's why I've learned, if I want to actually accomplish something, I can't set some big lofty goal for doing it. I've got an oppositionally defiant self that will defy me. They say, no asshole, you know, we're not going to do it that way. And at the same time, I, at least my friends all tell me, and they've told me this for

years, Robert, you're so consistently productive. My wife would frame that differently. She says, Robert, you work all the time. And I'm not driven. I'm really not. I got a PhD at 29, but not because I was driven. I hated school and high school, but the further I went, the more I liked school. So I just, I liked, you could do research and write and things like that when I got

to grad school. So I kept going. So it wasn't because I was driven to get a PhD. I mean, I may do some things out of insecurity. Oh, if I got some letters after my name, I'll be more believable. But it wasn't a drive. I had to get a PhD. I've built businesses, I've written four books, I've just moved to Mexico. I've just done things, but never because, oh, I got this big goal, I got to make that happen. I just usually went in the direction of either what I just naturally seemed to enjoy or what I was naturally curious about. Every book I've written just because I was curious, I wanted to understand stuff. So I just dove into it. And at some point I thought, well, I guess I should just write a book about it now. But I'm not super highly driven. But again, if you ask anybody that's known me for very long, they say that I'm also very consistently

productive. And so for me to be consistently productive, I'm always involved in things I enjoy being involved with. For example, I love doing this. I've never said no to an interview in my life. I love this communication. When you were talking about constructing sentences earlier, I thought, I love this where the sentences just come out of me. The muse just speaks. I love doing Q&A. I hate doing keynote speeches where I have to get up and give a canned speech because then I'm just

oh, what if I forget to say that one thing I want to say? But doing a Q&A, I absolutely love it. So I've orchestrated my life to get to do as many things as I like doing. I, I, whatever my sweet spots are, I try to spend as much time there as I can. Places that aren't my sweet spot. I either try to find a way out of it, pay someone to do it. I hate accounting. I hate bookkeeping, pay my accountant $550 a month to do all my books and taxes, best $550 ever spent.

And that lets me then keep staying in my sweet spot. And so for example, for me to get back into a fitness routine, I got a gym in my house, my office is in my house. I got a swimming pool in the backyard, my gym's 10 feet away from my office. My wife's a gym rat. She, she'll work out in the gym in the house and then go to the gym that has the heavier weights and the bigger machines. And you know, she'll kind of, you know, you're going to the gym today, right? Yeah, yeah, dear. Yeah, I'll be in there.

So if I'm going to be consistent, I got to find a way to, to, that I learned to enjoy that. I've got to make it a sweet spot that I get to the gym. So now I've started listening, you know, to good podcasts while I'm at the gym or I'll put on the good music that I like. I've got to find a way to make it enjoyable because if I'm just pushing myself, forcing myself, driving myself, it's not going to last long. It just will not be consistent. So for me, the way I'm wired, if I find things I love doing, I can do them day and night and give me a few little

naps in there and give me, give me some good buddies to talk to during the day. And I'll keep going forever. I can keep going forever. Yeah. But that's just me. That's how I'm wired. I was thinking, I had a conversation a couple of weeks ago, the guy that you're going for dinner with tonight, uh, George, it was his 30th in Miami and we're talking about why hard work is so

pedestalized in lots of cultures, but specifically in this version of the modern world, where leverage has been more available than ever before, where you can get more done whilst putting in less. Hard work is still this sort of mainstay and rightly so, like I like working hard, but one of the things, one of the reasons that I think it is so pedestalized

is that it's kind of like a universal solution to a multivariate problem. So there are lots of different ways to get the successful outcome that you want. You can use leverage, you can be creative, you can have the right networks, you can do, there's lots of different ways. Lots of those have a medium failure rate in them.

Hard work has a very low failure rate in it. There are very few problems that if you throw lots of hard work at it won't get better. Now it will get better painfully slowly, it will cause you to have to sacrifice yourself, you'll be crucified, your sleep will take a hit. The quality of your relationships, all of these things, you will pay very high price. Basically hard work is a reliable route to achieving something. And I think that its reliability causes us to think that makes it a panacea. It's like, no, it's one component of what you do.

And it may be one of what you do. And it may be one of the foundations that there are very few things that you can get good at without working hard, i.e. consistently with a degree of attention for non-insignificant durations of time. Let's say that's what hard work is. But that doesn't mean that you need to pray

the altar of it. And it also doesn't mean that you need to castigate yourself if you don't always work hard. So one of the strange things I did when I was running these nightclub events in my twenties, when we started running them, I had to work very hard. I paid a high personal price for them. Then the events began to become successful, but I shortcutted the sense of satisfaction I got from the events being successful to if it was successful and I

didn't suffer, this doesn't count. It doesn't count. Exactly. Doesn't count. If I didn't, sir, if it, if it happened and it went well, but I didn't pay a high personal price for this, I didn't not even worked hard. I could, you know, that's twisted, right? Of course. That's messed up. Of course. Yeah. Of course. Of course. And at the time I just, I don't know what I thought it was. I thought, I think that I considered that to be some sort of nobility in the suffering itself. You know, like a Puritan work ethic, these priests hoeing the garden, sun beating down on their back and it's in service of God.

It's not in service of the work. It's in service, it's not in service of the outcome of the work. It's in service of the work itself and of the tribute that it is. And yeah, that, you know, odd kind of like laborious masochistic approach that we have to the things that we do. I see an awful lot and yeah, I'd had this sort of insight about hard work as well.

Well, here's even a little bit of a twist on the hard work thing. If you look around the world, the hardest working people are usually the poorest people, especially if you're talking about physical labor. You can't use the word third world country or global emerging economy anymore. I don't know what Mexico, Mexico qualifies that. An Narco run institution. I don't know. Uh, it is.

Um, but you know, I'm surrounded by people who work really hard and have absolutely nothing and have absolutely nothing. And so I'm, I'm a fan of hard work, but I'm a fan of, of smart, hard work of fan of hard work, but I'm a fan of smart hard work, of hard work that actually takes you where you want to go. Because you can work really, really hard and not have anything to show for it. But you're right.

It's kind of built into our culture. I think it's maybe another one of those ways that cultures just tried to control us. If you get people, if you tell them, you got to keep working hard, you know, God favors the, you know, the person who works hard, God's going to bless you. Well, you can keep people plowing your fields, you know, time in and time out. They'll be subjugated to the local baron or they'll not break the rules or they won't spend enough time to be able to come up a revolutionary force that'll overthrow the government or the king. That's what they're all afraid of. It's the revolutionaries.

They don't want is, is, is how do we keep us people with power in power? Well, we'll create a religion. We'll create a cultural meme. We'll do whatever. I mean, you know, I've increasingly, I'm a ruthless capitalist through and through, but I do increasingly I'm seeing this sort of bizarre internal tyrant that people have about their work rate. And when you think, you know, go back a few thousand years and the requirement to use slaves, forced labor in order to be able to get shit done. And then how smart to somehow repurpose the slave master to be inside the slave itself, to think you go and work,

you go and work and you tell yourself that you want to work and then you tell yourself the story that this was what you were supposed to do and you chose to do this all along. It's so fascinating. And again, what's that quote about capitalism is the worst system apart from all of the other ones that have been tried. It's a compared to everything else.

And here's the thought, let's put a little different light on it. What's the best day of your life look like? Theoretically, our hard work, theoretically the stuff, you know, I launched a new company in a year ago. It took me two years of building it before I launched it. You know, I bootstrapped it, I'm in debt over it. I worked from 7 a.m. till 9 o'clock at night. It has not paid me a paycheck yet, and I'm loving it.

I'm having such a good time with it. So what's the best day of our life look like? Is it the day that this finally pays off, that it finally crosses this threshold, So, what's the best day of our life look like? Is it the day that this finally pays off, that it finally crosses this threshold, that you finally had that success with the event, you know, that I get to do an in-person podcast with somebody with a lot of followers? What's the best day of my life? And I don't think many of us, most of us even ask ourselves that question.

What are we working towards? Isn't it theoretically towards the best day of our life that on some day we'll have finished the work and we can rest, we can enjoy it, we can take pride in it, we can experience the fruits of our labor, we can share with our friends, we can dance, we can sing, we can have a good night's sleep. We can have sex. We, you know, isn't that best day of our life? And I'm wondering, do we really have to work so hard to have the best day of our life? Can you and I get up today? And if, and if you and I don't get up today with the intention of having the best day of our life, why not?

When's that going to happen? Is it going to be tomorrow? The Saturday next Saturday, you know, when, when, you know, when the business starts making a profit, when you're over 5,000, 5 million, remember 5,000 probably was a big deal, right? A huge deal. Yeah.

And that you've broken a million, 2 million, 5 million, 50 million. Yeah. Will you be happy and have the best day of your life then? Not unless you get up every day and have some component of the best day of your life today. What's that Seneca quote? How long are you going to wait until you start to demand the best for yourself?

It kind of goes back to making us a priority. A lot of people continue to wait. I want to talk, we didn't get to speak much last time about dating and about how nice guys seek the validation and how it shows up in their intimate relationships. How much do you think of nice guy syndrome stems from just wanting and needing the love and validation of women? Well, probably began with mom. So yeah, yeah.

Well, probably began with mom, so yeah. And another quote from one of my coaches in his book that I love, he says, a man doesn't mature until he quits seeking the approval of a woman. And I thought, I was listening to that on an audiobook while driving from California to Washington. I had to pull off the road and keep replaying that. A man doesn't mature until he quit seeking the approval of a woman. Unfortunately, the way most men date, especially nice guys as I define them, is all about seeking the approval of women. Pick me, pick me, choose me, get naked with me, people want to be my girlfriend. It's all chasing approval.

And, you know, as a marriage therapist, I started doing marriage therapy 40 years ago. And, you know, I've been married a few times. Most people, most guys walk into my office, they're still trying to chase the approval of a woman that, you know, has said, I do and married him. So that, that approval seeking, I think, of course, began with mommy. We come into this world, we have a caregiver, we're completely needy, dependent, vulnerable. And so we had to make sure stuff was good with mom. We had to make sure she was in a good mood, she was available. And then we had female caregivers, and then we had preschool with women, and then kindergarten and elementary school. It makes sense that since we were born

as men, that it felt like life and death to get the approval of women. But unfortunately, chasing that approval with women in terms of the dating scene in the dating world actually works completely against the results we want to get. Mike, what's the problem of chasing the approval of women? Well, kind of like chasing that success through hard work. You actually never do achieve it. And it's based on the assumption that the approval of, let's just say

feminine women could actually be attained. I don't know how many women have you been with, but have they been all consistently approving of you day in and day out? No. No, of course not. And so is that even attainable to get the approval of women? What if instead we were seeking the approval of ourself, maybe the approval of our male peers and friends through how we live our life and how we show up and our integrity and our authenticity and our values. What if that actually was attainable? I sat down to talk with you, I spent five, six days out at a retreat center with 40 guys. And just watching the love of men, I assume everybody's straight, the love that men were showing each other and would show me. I go away from doing the work I

do with men feeling much more loved than I've ever felt in any relationship with a woman. And I'm not trying to be dismissive of that, but what I'm saying, if we go seeking that kind and feeling much more loved than I've ever felt in any relationship with a woman. And I'm not trying to be dismissive of that, but what I'm saying, if we go, if we go seeking that kind of approval from women, not only, we're probably not going to get it. Maybe it isn't attainable, but then we start acting in ways that don't tend to turn women on. That don't tend to make them go, I want to get close to that guy. I like how I feel when I'm around that guy.

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D and 5 free AG1 travel packs by going to the link in the show notes below or heading to www.drinkag1.com slash wisdom. That's www.drinkag1.com slash wisdom. That's drinkag1.com slash wisdom. Now you say a woman may want to be attracted to a nice guy, but biology won't allow it. Nice is not a turn on, you know, there's, there's, um, I can't think of the name of it. You may know the name of it, but there's, um, a dynamic that giving to people does not actually make them like you. Nice guys think that, well, if I just give this person something, they'll like me.

Asking people to give something to view is going to increase the likelihood that they're going to think well of you. Because now the mind has to justify, I just gave something to that person. I must think well of them. I must think highly of them. Cause we don't give stuff to people we don't like. So requiring people to give stuff to you actually is more likely to drive up them, you know, wanting a connection. You gave me, there's a name for that.

I can't think of the name of it right now. I mean, reciprocal altruism is the dynamic that it's based on, but I don't know what the name of that particular effect is. There's something effect and I can't remember. Very interesting. I'll think of it later. I'll go, why didn't I think of that during the podcast? Yeah, you can tell me it over then.

That being said, it's so, there's another element in there, which is implicit in me asking for something from you is the sense that in future you probably get to ask something from me. That's okay. But that I think is the opposite of that is here is me giving something to you, which means that in future I'm going to ask for something in return.

Here is a gift, which in the covert contract, correct, which in future is going to be a debt. But the other person doesn't know about the contract. Correct. And that's why when all of a sudden they're not given to us and we're all resentful and frustrated and pissed off and passive aggressive or whatever, and they're going, what are you even talking about? I didn't know that there was any strings attached to those things you gave. Now I'm a giving, generous person. I like to give. Most people like to give. But when nice guys go see, I'll give you

an example. I teach men to be social animals, kind of going back to these isolated men. As I mentioned, when I got divorced from my second wife, I was in my late 40s, had never lived alone as an adult. I married my first wife two days after I graduated from college, moved out of the dorm, moved in. And there wasn't much gap in between my first and second wife. And when I got on online dating sites, match.com, that was before the Swipe Right apps. And I looked at profiles, I looked at women's profiles, all the things they said they did, the wine country, the wine tasting, the skiing,

the trips to Europe. And I go, and I wrote my profile and I thought, I spent the last 25 years going to my kids sporting events, walking the dog and trying to make my wife happy. That's what my life looks like. And I thought that's not going to attract a lot to me. But more than that, I thought, I want more of a life than that. I want more of a life.

And so the act of wanting to learn how to date drove me was part of what moved me to start creating the kind of life I wanted to live. Right. Well, you have two choices, right? You can either lie about the sort of life that you're going to live or expose to the world the boring as fuck life that you actually are having. And that doesn't, that doesn't go well in the profile, you know? So I made my bucket list, you know, I want to learn to shoot a gun. I want to ski.

I want to learn Spanish. I want to travel. I want to do this. But mainly I worked to become a social animal. If there was anything that I could do and I could do it in public, I went out in public and did it. Whether it was reading my New York Times or eating my breakfast or going out to have dinner. I'd go to a happy hour bar in a restaurant. I take my laptop. I take my books. If I could go be in public, I go and I practiced talking to people around me. Just, and, and then I started being successful in terms of dating and getting

laid and my clients start saying, Robert teach us, I'm not a dating coach, but you're having success. And so I, I, what I teach men, the approach I take is don't, don't, you know, you guys want to go learn these pickup techniques and this magic and the NLP and the hypnosis and the peacocking. And I call that pounding on closed doors. She's hot. I want her, I want her to pay that's, that's approval seeking at its ultimate. I tell guys, when you go approach a woman, just because she's hot, you've made her the alpha.

She's the decider in the business. She's the decider in the business. her, I want her to pay that's, that's approval seeking at its ultimate. I tell guys when you go approach a woman, just cause she's hot, you've made her the alpha. She's the decider now. And remember she's got lots of men, lots of men approaching her. She's the decider. You're not. You've made her the alpha.

You're the beta. Oh, you know, all these red pill and pick up guys, all the, I'm alpha. I'm no, you're chasing her because you want her approval. You want her to say yes. You've just given her all the power. But what if you don't need that?

What if you're just living this good life and then all these doors open around you and you notice women, you know, smiling at you, you know, walking in front of you a couple extra times unnecessarily, you know, bending over when they put the plate on the table. What if you just start noticing all the doors that are open? Now this is dating, but this is life, right? This is the abundance. You can go pound on closed doors all day long. That's a lot of work. I'm a big fan of walking through open doors. And the guys go, well, but you know, it seems, and I love this quote by David Data, choose a woman who chooses you. If you, you know chose her? No, you're going to chase and you're

going to work and you're never going to feel her approval. But the guy said- Even if you manage to get the marriage to work, even if you manage to get the ring on her finger, even if you manage to do the rest of it. You know what? Again, as a relationship therapist, I think I've spent more time with married men suffering through their woman not choosing them than single guys not getting women to choose them. Because the married guys, well, I'm married, it's the only choice I got now. I've got to get her to choose me. And I got guys who will say, Robert, how can I get my wife to want to have sex? How long since she's had sex? 14 years. And I go, I have no clue. I don't know how to fix that.

But what it is, they're trying to get a woman who's not approved of them in probably over 14 years to magically approve of them enough to get naked with them and let him, you know, poke her with his body parts. So it doesn't matter if these are single guys or guys in relationship. If you're chasing the approval of a woman who has already made it obvious, she's unapproving of you, she's not approving of you. That's a big waste of your time. Why not walk through open doors? And the guys go, well, but yeah, the women who seem to be interested in me, they're all fat or ugly or old.

And I go, that's again, that's your, your limiting beliefs. I've been with so many amazing women in my life and I didn't chase any of them. People ask me, Robert, how'd you meet your wife? I was walking down the street in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. I heard a voice that say, oh, listen, you're a wanna massage. So no way, manana, not today. I'm tomorrow. I thought, I liked your voice and a buddy of mine been saying, Robert, listen more to your emotional messages.

I liked your voice. I didn't even remember what she looked like. Turn around, walk back, said, how much? Started getting massages. Six months later, she basically propositioned me. I asked her out and we've been married seven and a half years now because I walked through an open door. I didn't have to go pound on a, and she is been married seven and a half years now because I walked through an open door.

I didn't have to go pound on a, and she is the most amazing, crazy, beautiful, sexy woman I know. And I'm just so blessed and I'm so grateful. My house, my dog, you've encountered Nala. I remember. You need to go lit her up. My wife was standing outside the house. She'd forgotten her cheese. I remember that as well. I apologize. Nala was barking to let me in, you know, while we were outside the house. She'd forgotten her cheese. I remember that as well. I apologize. And Nala was barking to let me in, you know, while we were recording the podcast. So I'm a big fan, but bring it back to the approval seeking.

I teach guys what I call test for interest. Just get out in public and with everybody in me, don't wait till you see a pretty woman. Anybody, men, women, old people, young people, just how's your day going so far? Been shopping, things ever gonna get rainy. That was's your day going so far? Been shopping? Things ever gonna get raining? That was a hell of a thunderstorm last night, wasn't it? Yeah. We got to watch a great thunderstorm here in Austin. Just anything, social pleasantry, that's level one testing.

If that level one testing just organically continues, I call that level two. You connect in some way, you know, the conversations you have in these podcasts, quickly, you're good at this. They go to level two, you connect in some way, you know, the conversations you have in these podcasts quickly, you're good at this. They go to level two. All of a sudden you're talking about things you probably didn't have in your notes. It's just enjoyable conversation. That's just how social interaction works. But somebody has to start, somebody has to, how's your day going so far?

There's gotta be some start to it. I can teach guys to do that. A lot of guys will get pretty good at that. Then they want to make the level two happen. I go, no, don't. It'll just happen. Most of the time you say, how's your day going so far? Fine.

And I tell guys, all you gotta do is check for high or low interest, perceived high or low interest in having a continuing interaction from the other person. And if all of a sudden you hit it off and you're having a conversation, it goes 30 seconds, 60 seconds, a couple of minutes, you're standing in line, waiting for your coffee, whatever. Most of the time that will end. And you say, Hey, nice to meet you. Have a great day. But occasionally there's a real connection there. Whether it's you talking with another guy, whether it's you with a woman. Now at level three, you have to require something of them to see how high that level is to have a continuing interaction. Typically it might say, hey, give me your number, give me your Instagram,

you know, give me this, I'll call you. I got an idea. I got a plan. We'll connect. And if they go, yeah, that's great. You know, I'm really busy these days. Well, it's all interest. You find out what you needed to know. Or they say, that'd be fantastic. I'd love to connect with you. They give you a number, whatever. Then that's high interest. But what I found is that most men because of that approval seeking, especially with women, they get to level two, they seem to have the woman's approval. They're having a nice conversation. She's talking a lot is going well. They don't want to blow that.

So they don't do anything that might risk the approval. They don't say anything that might rock the boat. They don't require anything of her. They don't touch her. They don't take her hand and lead her. They don't play, they get playful with her and they just start playing it safe. That's the boring part that women go, when I'm on an airplane, I'm sitting next to a woman, you know, if you talk about what do you do?

And I go, well, yeah, I'm a relationship. I teach men about, well, what do you teach men? The women always want to know, what do you teach men about relationship? So, you know, I tell the woman the kind of stuff we're talking about. And the women would go, can, can, can I tell you a couple of things to tell your men? I go, okay. This is like doing a request from the DJ. Yeah.

Can you play a couple of tracks the DJ. Yeah. Okay. Can you play a couple of tracks for me? Yeah. Can you play, you know, we built this city, you know? So they say, tell the men trim their ears and nose hair. That's one thing they say. Okay. The other thing that things say is tell them to polish their shoes.

Shoes are important to women. Women notice their shoes. That's interesting. But then they go, can I ask you a couple of questions? And I go, sure. They go, how come? I see a guy, I look his way, I smile at him. I open my body, I turn towards him, and I notice him a time or two.

How come he never walks over and talks to me? And I said, because he's scared. And they go, why? And I go, because you're scary. And they go, no, I'm not scary, but we men, you're scary. And then I go, oh, you know, maybe the guy is, does have a conversation with me. We talk about everything under the sun. I touch his arm a lot.

I lean into him. I smile. I laugh at his corny jokes. I'm thinking, when's he going to ask for my number? You know, do I have to put up a billboard to say, Hey, dumb shit, ask me for my number, you know? And then the guy gets done and he goes, uh, well, it was nice talking to you. Shakes the hand.

Maybe I'll bump into you sometime. And they go, why don't they do that? I go, cause he's scared. Well, they're looking at each different stage. Guys are looking for rejection. So I think it's, I think I'm, which is just the opposite of approval. If they approve of me, I don't get rejected. So I don't want to, if I've got approval at any level, I don't want to risk the

rejection. That'll take, that'll take, I'll take that as a win. I'll take it as a win. Exactly. In other news, this episode is brought to you by Shopify. Shopify powers 10% of all e-commerce in the United States, including huge brands like Gymshark and Allbirds and... Utonic. They are the global commerce platform that helps you sell at every

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That's Shopify.com slash modern wisdom to grow your business now, no matter what stage you're in. I don't remember whether I told you this last time. I struggled to give dating advice to women, being a non-vagina owner myself, but one of the things that I think women definitely can cultivate is receptiveness. I think that you need to basically treat the men that you're attracted to like particularly slow,

mentally disabled golden retrievers. Like, you know, that's the level of signaling that you need to put out into the world to the guys. And there's this story from sort of aristocrat England Renaissance period where ladies would drop a handkerchief in front of men as they were walking. Yeah, can we go back to that? But the guys nowadays would go, was that for him? It, it wasn't for me. It must've been for him. Well, I don't know. It's like, ah, it's not right.

But yeah, I think you've spoken about this too, although we didn't talk about it last time. In a post-MeToo world, I do think men and women especially, women probably don't realize the impact that MeToo has had, the negative impact MeToo's had on men's dating behavior. And again, this isn't to say that Me Too has had, the negative impact Me Too's had on men's dating behavior. And again, this isn't to say that Me Too wasn't an important redress to some people in Hollywood

being total dickheads and you know, Harvey Weinstein's about to like get retried apparently. Because- He got out of jail. Yeah, some dodgy shit. But in a post Me Too world, men are terrified of being seen as a predator. Any good man is going to think, well, fuck, like, I don't want to be part of some scandal.

I don't want to make her feel uncomfortable. I've seen these videos on the internet of girls in the gym being approached by dudes when they're trying to unload plates. Wow. How sensitive and tentative and tenuous is the world of men approaching women at the moment? And I absolutely do not want to internally be that kind of guy externally be accused of being that kind of guy, reputational destruction, all of this shit.

So I think just adjusting the sites on the scope for women, especially in the post-me too world could make dating an awful lot easier for them. It's like, Hey, cultivate some receptiveness, drop a visual handkerchief. I love that a lot. Can I use that? Absolutely. I love that. You know, I told you earlier, I've never said no to an interview.

And I did one about six months ago with a young guy, Hispanic guy in LA. And found out later when I checked out the, it was, I was his number one YouTube post, his first YouTube post. Young guy, great interview. This guy's, this guy's going to be great. And, um, but he asked me the question. He said, all right, what advice do you have for guys my age? 21.

And he shared an example of where he had not done something inappropriate, but had an experience with his girlfriend and she was going to post on social media that he raped her. And then apparently a friend intervened and I don't know the story, but he said, what advice would you give to young men? And I go, honestly, I don't know. I don't know that when women, if you have a fear that women are going to go post anything and everything on social media and you, you got no rebuttal and, and, you know, it's going to be believed, you know, a mantra that I've

never loved is during hashtag me too, is the victim is always to be believed. But what if the victim is a man has been falsely accused and he's saying, I'm the victim here. I didn't do that. Um, if he's a man, he's not to be believed. You know, we do have a skewed system around that. Now, yes. One reason, for example, I don't like pick up an approach is I think it's fundamentally invasive. I think men have no idea what it's like to be in a woman's skin, especially a young,

moderately attractive woman who has men walking up to them all the time. And as a woman, you don't know what this guy's about. You do know he's approaching you because you got boobs and you don't know what the story is from there. Whether he's going to come be a nice guy and try to get your approval or whether he's going to come on and hit on you, you don't know. You don't know where that's going to lead. And I can understand as a woman, I'd put my guard up.

I'd have my guard up if men were just, I'm in the gym and they're approaching me and talking to me. And you know, I don't know where this is headed, what they want. I don't know them from Adam. So I'm not a big fan of just approaching women because they're hot. And I know that's not a popular stand to take because men want hot women. Well, how else am I going to get a hot woman if I don't go to approach her because she's hot. And I go, that's a great way. It's how you pick your car mechanic, your heart surgeon, you know, your dentist. No, you pick them because they're competent at the skills you want them to have. Um, and just assuming cause a woman's hot, she's good and better. Can be good girlfriend is a reach.

So you say an obsession with hot women is basically broadcasting a man's low self-worth. It does tend to do that, but yet we'll go on the internet and we'll say, this will make you a real man if you go get the hot woman. So I don't have the answer to that other question of what do you do when interacting with a woman? Because I know when I got out there and got successful with women in my 40s and 50s, I wasn't getting younger. I went through a bankruptcy, I wasn't rich, but I had success. And I just had success because they didn't hold back. I practiced what I call touch, tease, and tell. If I had impulse

to touch her, I'd touch her. I'd tease her. I would tell her, come on, let's go do this. And I was just playful. I was uninhibited. And in general, women really liked that and really responded well. But what if we live in a world where if I just touch a woman's arm, I don't know if she's going to have a major overreaction to that, or she's going to go ballistic, or I become a hashtag me too casually, or it goes on her social media. I don't know the answer to that. So I agree with you though that we do need a readjustment. We needed some adjustments that a world where men could do whatever they wanted to women because they could, they were bigger, they were stronger, they were powerful, that had

to change. But now where we have a world where women are going, we live in a culture where in the US now, statistically, for the first time since they started counting numbers, over 50% of men and women, 35 and younger, report not having been in a relationship for the last year. So with all our hookup culture, all the swipe right, all the dating boot camps and Instagram, all your photos, all of that stuff, people aren't getting into relationships. And I think there's probably a number of factors to it, but I think probably one of them is a fear factor.

If I get into a relationship, what are the consequences? If I even try to approach a person and talk to them, what are the negative consequences they're going to get broadcast on social media? And I'm not a big fan of social media for many reasons. It has value, but yeah, I'm glad I'm not a young guy having to navigate that world. It's perilous. And then it's also, you know, perilous is a girl who wants to get into a relationship because they think, well, I need to, you know, Chris said,

cultivate receptivity and drop the handkerchief and stuff. That sounds like a good, that seems like a smart idea. And yet I'm physically vulnerable and there are these horror stories out there. And I am afraid of strange men. And maybe they've had those horrors. And maybe I've got evidence in my history that justifies my fear of that. And I've now got to get over it. Yeah, it's given that we have the most permissive mating culture ever. It is strange that dating has probably never been so hard.

And go back to the similar statistics and so few young adults are having sex. You know, maybe porn just makes it easier to just go get things done that way. But yeah, I think we'd live in a place where, well, my two thoughts about the hookup culture, yeah, part of it is this fear of, you know, both men and women. You know, what am I getting myself into? But I think for men, because men, I tell guys, you know, our grandfathers maybe saw three beautiful women in their lifetime and didn't see any of them naked. Guys can go see beautiful women, not even just on porn, but just on their Instagram feed, just TikTok, whatever, beautiful woman after beautiful woman

without a lot of clothes on. So I think there's one thing with men nowadays, even if we get a woman, you know, maybe a woman that we consider desirable, we're looking around with, she's cuter, she's cuter, she's cuter, she's cuter. And so I think guys have this thing, well, I can't make any kind of ongoing commitment to this one because there might be this cuter one that I want to be with. And, you know, I tell guys, number one, of course, you're always going to see prettier, younger women. And the woman you're with also sees the prettier, younger women and

knows you're thinking, you know, wouldn't it be nice? And so that's always going to happen. I tell guys, you have to stop that kind of thinking, kind of ruminating. Well, I'm with this one, but because I'm with her, I can't be with her. That serves no purpose. That will not move you forward in life. Cause even if you weren't with this one, you probably wouldn't talk to that one anyway. But so I think for the men, there's just so many beautiful women to be seen everywhere.

We have this fear of getting all the way in with one. Cause what if I want to get with that other beautiful women? But I think for women, it's a little bit different dynamic. this fear of getting all the way in with one, because what if I want to get with that other beautiful woman? But I think for women, it's a little bit different dynamic. And maybe I'll hear from some women about this. I think for the women, social media gives them lots of attention. And I think the feminine thrives on attention and desire

and praise. That's the feminine in any of us. And so I think for the women, if I just commit to one guy, if I get all within one guy, I got to turn off my social media in this constant funnel of praise. I got to quit putting sexy selfies of myself up and getting all the likes and all the, you know, and so we've got this kind of technological world that makes it so easy to meet, connect, go fast, and nobody's actually getting together, staying together for any length of time.

Talk to me about how guys can be more confident when talking to women. Not seek their approval. Um, you know what? I've never worried about confidence. Now I, I will say that if a man interacts with a woman with confidence, it creates the same chemical reaction in her brain that he would have if she'd lift her shirt and showed her his breasts. You don't have to think about it. We don't think, do I like those? It's just wired.

And if a guy is confident, you know, women, they don't have to think about it. Do I like that? They just like it. What I found for me, because you know, I've got all my own insecurities and I've got all my own history of well, women aren't attracted to me and beautiful women aren't attracted to me, even though my second wife was gorgeous and I've been with plenty of beautiful women. You know, we've got these messages that still dictate, you still dictate how we behave. For me, it was always more of a matter of just not holding back. Not holding back. Again, the fact that I would just talk to people everywhere I go. And all of a sudden, a woman in a room sees, who is that guy? He just talks to everybody. He seems to know everybody. Every restaurant I went in, I always, every restaurant I went in, every, I asked people their name. You know, I, I, I asked Uber drivers their name.

I asked, you know, I asked your camera guy his name. Anthony, right? Yes. You had to think, Oh, is that right? I hope you can embarrass me if it wasn't. That's fine. Yeah. I, but I always ask their names and if I forget or get it wrong, I ask again.

And so there's just something about that of just being socially Interactive that I found tends to be highly attractive to the feminine now I'm married to a jealous Latina and She is always pointing out women that are coming onto me or trying to get my attention. They're always very young and I don't chase young women, but there's just something about being comfortable in your own skin. You like that quote, I remember it.

Just being comfortable in your own skin, having a life of purpose, know where you're going, enjoying that path, enjoying where you're going. I think it makes you attractive to all things. Men, women, opportunity, money, adventure. And I'm a big fan of saying yes. A dear old friend of mine passed away a few years ago, a gay fellow down in Puerto Vallarta had this bed and breakfast I used to stay at and my mother used to stay at and him and his gay partner ran it. And he used to say, he said, sin to say no, when you should have said yes. So, I used to be- It's a very strong philosophy for a gay person. I imagine a lot of gay guys live by that philosophy.

And you know, and yeah, I used to be surrounded by gay men whenever I'd be there. And guys say, well, how do you know when you should have said no? You'll know in 24 hours. But I turn that into basically my guide for life, is that's why I said yes to my wife when she said, I went back and got a massage. Every amazing thing in my life has come from saying yes. I say yes to interviews, I say yes to opportunities. I say yes to go get to, you know, go be a part of this retreat. I just keep saying yes. And it's funny how things just keep coming to me. Uh, when you say yes, I used to be, you know, I think about it, research it, talk about it a lot, take a lot of time and then the opportunities come and gone.

So I think that being uninhibited, not holding back, having a yes mentality has tended to make me attractive to women. And, you know, I even kind of hesitate to say that, you know, I'm 68 years old, you know, hair's gone, what I've got is white. You know, I'm just, I just think I'm very average in very many ways. And in spite of that averageness, I don't seem to have any problem attracting good things to my life, whether they be opportunities to talk to interesting people, um, take interesting trips, have women pay attention to me.

And there's no magic to it. But if I just tell guys again, get out of the house, expand your route, linger in public, talk to people, test for interest, walk through open doors, say yes, it makes you an interesting person. And when you're working in nightclubs, that's all the people were. They were just saying, they were interacting with people, right? Yes. And not because they were so rich or so good looking, they just were engaged. And that just makes such a difference.

What are some of the more successful or creative ways that people can use online dating? You mentioned that you briefly sort of got into and got out of the apps for better or worse, they're here to stay. Well, I actually never did the apps. They came along, you know, and maybe I'm grateful for that. I hear they're addictive. And maybe that's part of the problem. You know, I know guys, I've had guys come visit me in part of Ayrton, you know,

and they get on the apps, you know, Tinder and whatever, looking for women around. And like the whole time they're hanging out with me or at my house or by the pool, they're on the friggin app the entire time. And maybe get a few dates out of it. So, you know, they work. A buddy told me one time that apparently he got pretty good at doing the apps. And he said, you know, if you ever got a mutual connection, um, his, his standard response was whatever the woman's name was, say her name, Hey, Jessica, you

animal, what are you doing here? And he said, that just seems to work. Now, I don't know that it's tried or true, but it does kind of fit that model of just not holding back, just, just being out there. I tell guys, blurt. So just blurt. You know, I tell guys, you know, if something comes front of your mind, just say it. You know, the more you hold back, the safer you get. And again, I tell guys, you know, if you're not holding back, you, just say it, you know, the more you hold back, the safer you get. And again, even though I know, I say women by nature, security seeking creatures, IE they'll hashtag me too thing.

They, they're drawn to something that has an edge to it, something that has some energy to it. So I'd say as much as anything, don't play it safe. Playing safe is boring. And, but again, did you just give me, now my favorite one, like you said, I was pre-app, but one of the things I would do if I connected with a woman, like on match.com, I'd send her a message and I say, all right, I call you up. I tell you, you got 30 minutes to pack your passport, your flip flops and your bikini. Where are we going?

And it starts a conversation. It kind of gets them thinking. It gets you into their mind of doing something together. It's going to be a nice place, some tropical or warm. I've already told them, you know, pack your bikini, your flip flops and your passport, go in someplace fun. And they get to pick what it is. So now if they respond to that, I find out how they think, how they engage in that kind of energy, what kind of places they like to go. We got something to talk about now. But if I had been there, not been there,

we can talk about, have you been there? So do something that just creates an energy that they want to respond to. It's exciting, it's playful. Yeah. Charlie, you went on my friend Charlie Hoopit's show a couple of months ago, and he has almost exactly the same thing for speaking to women, that like, where would we go if we were going to take a trip away together?

And then she says that and he says, oh, it's okay, you know, I'll quit my job, I can sell Lucy cigarettes on the beachfront, you know, I'll quit my job. I can sell Lucy cigarettes on the, on the beach front. Yeah. You know, we can make mushroom cocktails and we'll sell those. And like, it's fun. Like that kind of fantasizing the playful sort of like teasing energy. I think, I don't know, there's, there's a meta meme at the moment around

seriousness and earnestness from guys, but like the playfulness, I think, is where it's fun because it helps to relieve some of the pressure. You're a dude who's speaking to a girl. You're already terrified that she's going to reject you. You're terrified about these things. And the more serious you make the interaction, the more that piles the pressure on. I mentioned earlier that I think all the women I've been married to have ruminating brains.

And I think a lot of women do. My wife will say, oh, today's the 12th hamster day. You're just, the hamsters are spinning up there. And if you think about it, most women nowadays live in such, I'll just call it a masculine world. With feminism, they've been taught, go accomplish, have a career, don't be dependent on a man, blah, blah, blah, blah. Don't even think about kids till you're pushing 40.

Just try, I mean, just that whole, the masculine doing mentality. And if they have any degree of feminine essence, they also like beauty and love and escape and beaches and romance. But yet most of them just drown that out because they got to get up, got to do their job. Looking for this studio, I came in from the door

down on the street and I opened the door and here's 25 women all sitting desks so close to each other. And I go, uh, yeah, I'm looking for the studio. And you know, and they, uh, what's, what, what, what sweet, anyway, you know, here's all these young women doing a job, right? Driven to do that. And you know, the, the, the, the whole song,

you know, girls just want to have fun. They do. They, they, they want an escape from that. And often they don't know how to get themselves out of that hamster wheel mentality. That's interesting. Once they're in it, they don't have a ready built escape. Maybe that's why they all go to get the glass of wine or cocktail hour or whatever. Right.

So it relieves that. So what if you come along and they weren't expecting you, they don't know who you are. And maybe, you know, whatever, however you engage them gets them past that fear of what does this guy, who is this guy, what does he want? And what if you can just be engaging and playful and spontaneous and uninhibited, you

know, you're either going to make their day better for 45 seconds or you may spend a while. When I was taking salsa lessons, I went from being a terrible salsa dancer to being kind of an awkward, still white guy salsa dancer. But I'd be standing on a corner waiting on a bus or standing somewhere and Um, and I'd ask them, do salsa. And if they said no, I go, I'm taking lessons. Let me show you a step. I would just get the frame, get them in frame and I'd do a simple cross body

lead, or if they said yes, I go good. I'm taking salsa. Let me practice with you. I'm trying to practice, you know, this cross body lead with a spin. I would just do stuff like that. And again, not as a technique, but I just found that if I just was uninhibited and engaged with people, most people are going to just stay glued to their phone. But you know, some people actually respond, they light up, they want to engage

even again, for just a few moments or longer. Talk to me about being outcome agnostic. Outcome agnostic. I didn't come up with that term, but the first time I heard it, I just loved it. Um, you know, probably most of us have heard that the Buddha said that attachment is a cause of all suffering. When I teach men this about being, um, outcome agnostic, non-attached outcome, men get mad at me. They think I made that up and imposed it on them. No, no, don't put it on me.

It probably preceded the Buddha even. But the truth is, if we get emotionally attached to a specific outcome, we're going to suffer. And that's just the human condition. And we all get attached. And guys will say, well, why would I even date? Why would I talk to a woman if I wasn't attached to getting that pretty woman? And I go, well, you might not. But I said, if you have fewer attachments, you might actually be more engaging and not so anxious. Cause I also say that attachment is a cause of all anxiety. And so what if, we'll keep it in the dating sphere.

What if you're standing, there's a woman standing next to you and let's say, you know, she's reasonably attractive and you want to say something to her. What if you were equally okay with every possible outcome? Now, you might prefer some, right? You might prefer that, you know, she smile and respond to you and maybe give you a number and maybe she go on a date with you, unless maybe you find out she's a psycho bitch from hell and then you wish she hadn't. But then what if you're equally okay with that as a possible outcome? And life flows. You

can say yes to more things if you're equally okay with every possible outcome. And again, are we going to like some outcomes better than others? Yes. But are some of the outcomes we didn't love, do they turn out to maybe be an outcome that we didn't see coming? I had a tumor blocking my small intestine six years ago. Really sick. Three months in pain all the time. Couldn't eat, couldn't use the bathroom, lost over 30 pounds,

went to doctors in the US, Mexico, got undiagnosed, misdiagnosed. Did I want that? I knew it was killing me. I didn't know what is killing me. The last doctor I saw in the US, a gastroenterologist said, you probably just have, you know, a Mexican parasite. You have to outlive. I wasn't going to live a golf ball sized tumor in my small intestine. She didn't even run the right test to go looking for it. At some point I surrendered. I didn't know what I had.

I didn't know if it was going to kill me. I had a pretty good idea. It might be killing me. I was headed that direction. I was in pain all the time. The only remedy to pain was just breathing and relaxing into it. And when I finally surrendered into it, the pain became less. Did I want to be in pain? No.

But I surrendered. I accepted. I had something I might not ever know what I had. I accepted it might be killing me. And, um, it got easier. People would ask me, Robert, how are you feeling? And I'd say, you know, I don't know if I'm actually doing better, feeling better, or just I've gotten better at feeling bad, but the surrender and the acceptance of it. Let me live with it. And then great story of how my wife found the

doctor that found the tumor that took it out and all of that. And here I am six, seven years later and life's good and I'm happy. Would I want to go through that again? No, but I do it at least once a year. Nah, it's just a little reminder. Yeah.

Just to have a, have a good life. So it's a practice to, to become outcome agnostic, to be equally okay with every possible outcome. Guys will say, why would I even get out of bed in the morning? I go, I don't know about you, but when I'm not attached to so many, if I'm not emotionally attached to so many specific outcomes, I get out of mood, out of bed, in a good mood, excited for the adventure of the day. You know, this morning I knew I was going to come do an interview with you, you know,

and I know we had a previously good interview, so I knew it was going to be good. You say, I'm going to introduce you to some phenomenally interesting friends. All of my friends have bets going on who that may be. So we're having a good time. You know, it doesn't matter who you introduce me to because I know it's going to be cool. We're going to have a good time. So what if we can just get up every day and live that way that life's going to be good today.

And one of my mantras is I love waking up in the morning, not knowing how my day is going to end. And I have, I've had so many days getting ready for bed going, I did not see this coming when I got up this morning. And today's probably going to be one of those days. see this coming when I got up this morning and today's probably going to be one of those days. You are experienced in dating after breakups and divorces. What is your advice to guys that are trying to get back into the market after they've been in a relationship for a while? I don't know if it changes that much for guys that have never been. You know, when I got out

in the dating world, I realized two things. I'd done enough work on myself by that time. Uh, I realized that I'd always use nice guy seduction to get women, listen to them talk about their problems, be kind, be nice, do things for them, fix things, pay their car payment, you know, help their sister move. Uh, and then maybe, you know, and hide your sexual agenda from them, then maybe they'll want to take their clothes off. The math on that doesn't work well either. And so I thought, okay, I got to change that pattern. And I thought two things.

Like I said, it was in my late 40s, I thought I have to become a better picker and I have to become a better ender. And I didn't even know really how to be a good picker. So friends started giving me all kinds of stuff. I read Neil Strauss, guys gave me double your dating with David D'Angelo. I just listened to podcasts. And mainly, like I said, I just got out in public. Every chance I got, I was in public and every chance I got, I talked to people. And then I just got bold and I took risks and I asked for numbers.

I found that that's easy. Often women, like I said, they're waiting for the guy say, give me your number. I guess nowadays you ask for people's Instagram, but you know, showing my age again, so I decided I had to become a better picker, but be a better ender. Because part of my, my nice guy seduction thing is that once I got a woman, I'd hang on way too long because I didn't know if I'd ever get another one again. And I didn't want to have to go out again and go through the whole process. So I stayed way too long in every relationship I was ever in.

Usually in the first few months, I recognized there were severe warning signs. And about three years in, at some level I realized they were done growing or evolving in the relationship. And I'd stay a few more years and usually then act badly. And then I got to be the bad guy for how the relationship ended. And so I realized I had to be a better picker. So become a better picker and better ender. And I realized that being a good ender covers a multitude of sins of being a bad picker. And actually what dating is, is making multiple bad picks. One bad pick. That's what dating is. Go on a date and find out, do you want to go on a second date? If you don't, end it. You made a bad pick, but you didn't know you made a bad pick until you go.

When guys would say, Robert, I don't know what's wrong with me. All my dates are just one and done. You know, we go on this one day, one copy date, and then, you know, I don't want to see them again. I don't hear from them again. I go, good. That's how it's supposed to work. You should not, every woman you meet should not become your future wife.

And so becoming a better picker, I think, I think you do have to get socially adept. You have to get good at knowing you can meet people. You can connect with people because if you don't know that and you do connect with somebody, you're just going to hang onto them for dear life. And so really go work at being that social animal. During COVID, that really got tough, but hopefully we got another window of time where we can actually get out and be social. Tactically, how can people be better enders?

Better enders, sooner rather than later. Always sooner rather than later. Now, people with ruminating brains can spend years in a relationship every day. Should I stay? Should I go? Should I stay? Should I go? Thinking, well, if I leave, will I regret it? And what if she gets another guy?

Then I'll be jealous. And what, but what if I stay? I'm missing out on that opportunity. So ruminating brain makes this, you know, how long wheels on steroids, but as soon as you realize a person is not somebody that you can't imagine yourself not being with, it's probably a good time to stop it. And I learned from trial and error that I met many, when I started dating, I did not want to just jump back in a relationship. I'd been married 25 years and I just wanted the experience of dating.

And I wasn't even trying to just jump back in a relationship. I'd been married 25 years and I just wanted the experience of dating. And I wasn't even trying to just go get laid a lot. I wanted that too, but I was just wanting the experience of dating and meeting people. And I let women know that upfront and you know, the majority of them, that's cool. That's great. That's what I'm about to, you know, some women say, well, don't waste my time. If you're not looking to get in a relationship. Okay, great. You know, and they would say that and then still sleep with me. Funny. But what I did realize, a lot of women very quickly wanted to get sexual with me and did. I mean, I'm going on first and

second dates and they're getting naked without me. I'm going, whoa, is this the world that I live in now? And, uh, cause that didn't seem to be the way it was when I was young. And so, um, so I said, yes, to all those opportunities. And even when the women knew, you know, I was seeing multiple women and not trying to be exclusive. I noticed many were beginning to develop fond feelings and I'm going, well, I've got sexual access. I've already told her, you know, I'm, you know, I'm not just seeing her. And I quickly learned, um, don't continue doing that.

You know, if I don't see myself being with her over a long period of time, and I can see that look in her eye, she's getting those feelings. I would end it. Even if you've stated upfront. Even if. Yeah. Do you think that that's the sort of, um, female attachment, the belief those feelings, I would end it. Even if you've stated upfront. Even if. Yeah. Do you think that that's the sort of, um, female attachment, the belief that maybe

I can be the one that's going to break him out of this preconceived idea of what he's going to do? Maybe. I don't know that I can speak to it. What I think maybe the, maybe the best generalization I can make is that men do this too, so it's hard to really generalize. But I think in women, when they open up to have sex with a man, they also tend to open their heart up. And they begin thinking in terms of the relational dynamic with this person, not just, oh, that

felt good to have sex, but I like being with him. I want to see him again. I want to know him. I want to connect with him. And whereas men, men can do that too. I'm not saying it's just a guy or girl thing, but maybe the, maybe women are more likely to do that. And the guys more likely go, oh, if I can keep having sex with three or four women, why would I stop doing that? And the woman is going, I wonder if I can just get them to have sex with me because I like that. I think there's a, especially with a modern culture that tells women you can work like your father

and have sex like your brother. You know, you can be the- Did you make that up? Yeah. That is good. It's what modern culture is taught when, work like your father, have sex like your brother. And, you know, that feels liberating and empowering

and independent and modern and progressive and cool and sexy and all of this stuff. And then, you know, for you to say, hey, you know, I can't bifurcate my feelings from my body in the way that culture is telling me that I should be able to, and in the way that men seem to be able to do more effectively. Like, look, to the ladies that are listening, you are not going to be able to out casual sex the guy that you're having casual sex with. Like, even if he's catching some feels, you're catching more on average. And it's not a fair fight, this sort of degree of casualness.

And I do think that, you know, I'm back on the dating scene now, which I haven't been for a very long time, which is scary and a whole new world for me. And learning to be open and honest and upfront. Uh, and then it's, it's almost like being overly honest in a way. It's not to do with honesty. What you're, what you're suggesting here is like, look, I know where

this will come into land. Like I know what the outcome of this is going to be. If we just keep on running this same script forward, I'm going to step in and get us there more quickly. I'm going to shortcut this because I think that I can reduce a little bit of pain, a bit of discomfort and all the rest of it before there is more pain and more discomfort. And I'm going to do that myself.

And that's a good way of saying, you know, what I learned over time, because even when I'd tell women upfront, yeah, I a good way of saying, you know, what I learned over time, because even when I'd tell women upfront, yeah, I'm just recently out of, you know, relationship, just, and they go, great, great, great. I'd start seeing that look in their eye and I'd remind them again and they all would say the same thing. I heard you the first time. Their brain heard me the first time. The brain heard me the first time. Their heart was getting connected and I promise you,

if their heart's getting connected and you're good looking, you're charismatic, you're in good shape, you're successful, they are going to fall. They're going to fall for you. You know that. And they're going to fall. And I'll just be blunt, if you're fucking them well, oh, yeah, they just want to, they want it. They want that whole package. And if you're just in it and you're fucking them well and you're enjoying that part of it, but you're not seeing them in the same way they see you, every time that I let that go longer, longer, longer, and then it comes to an end. It does.

At some point you're a mismatch and it becomes so obvious it can't be denied. And then it's messy and you know, dating is messy enough. And so I made that conscious decision that even if the woman seemed really cool with us continuing to have casual sex, when I knew her heart was opening and she was loving the sex and just loving being with me, I had to end it. Break her heart. I know it sounds egotistical, but it's not. I'd rather break her heart three or four weeks into it rather than three or four months into

it. And that does make a big difference in the timeline of dating. Dr. Robert Glover, ladies and gentlemen, Robert, I really appreciate you. Thank you for coming to see me. Where should people go? They want to keep up to date with everything you do. DrGlover.com, integrationnation.net, two best places to find me. Hell yeah. I appreciate you. Thank you. This was so fun.